4th Film Info (READ OP) + Speculation

[pwhodges]

On another note, am I the only one who felt that Gendo's plan in 3.0 was needlessly and overly convoluted? Pretty much all of it hinged on the characters acting in an exact way, and doing everything exactly as he predicted, when the slightest variable could have foiled the entire thing.

Well yes, the whole thing does rely on that butterfly not flapping its wings!

But stories are inherently like that; and real life, even - it's not fantastic that we are as we are, it's just what actually happened (see also: Anthropic Principle).

[LightDragonman]

I'm just saying, that was an awful lot of work when he could have done a lot of it himself you know. Like, did he really need to sit around on his butt for 14 years in the hopes that eventually, WILLE would just so happen to find and retrieve Shinji? And what if they did also find Rei with him? How exactly would Gendo hope to bring him back to NERV then?

Gendo, you can be a magnificent bastard and all, but eventually, even I'm gonna have to call shenanigans on this gambit roulette of yours.

[ElMariachi]

We don't know what happened during the past 14 years, maybe Gendo and SEELE tried many other ways to launch HIP(after all there is still at least one LoL and ADAM we didn't heard of) that where constantly thwarted by WILLE until using Shinji in EVA-13 was the only solution left.
Or maybe Kaworu simply refused to follow through HIP if Shinji isn't at his side(after all, nor Gendo or SEELE can do anything against him seeing the limited resources they have)
Or maybe plainly and simply they needed a dual-piloted Evangelion piloted by two Impact Triggers to launch HIP, forcing them to wait until WILLE manages to drag the tesseract back on Earth(neo-NERV don't seem to have the resources to carry on that kind of operation). And since WILLE needs the Wunder to be able to fly to have a way to attack neo-NERV HQ and put an end to the war, it was just a question of time before they bring EVA-01 back.
And a last thing to remember is that in the end Gendo needed the Wunder to be able to fly so WILLE would be able to intercept EVA-13 and stop 4I after Gendo tricks SEELE into mass suicide, so his only course of action was to wait that WILLE put their hands on EVA-01 and install it on the Wunder before making his moves.

Now as to how Gendo managed to make everyone behave the way they did, he had 14 years to study Kaworu and device a way to trick him into sacrificing himself, and for Shinji, Gendo knows his son's psyche perfectly(he even exactly predicted how he would react after the Shamshel fight!), and it's implied that he deliberately crafted his son into the boy he's at the time of the story by sending him to live with his teacher, so it's not a wonder that Gendo know exactly which emotional buttons to push to make his son do exactly what he wants, be it willingly coming to him, ditching his former friends on the process, or going to pull out the spears even once Kaworu will realize that it's a trap.

[LightDragonman]

See that's the thing. Because we have little to no idea as to what happened during those 14 years, let alone what Gendo was doing all that time, we have to speculate and make stuff up in order to justify and explain what the movie fails to tell or show us. This is one thing that 4.0 should shed some light on.

Now to clarify, I'm not saying that there is nothing wrong with trying to leave some stuff up to the viewer's imagination, and hey, I like to speculate as well. But without some clear-cut answers as to the important plot details, such as how Gendo predicted all this would happen, and how he knew his son would act a certain way, it just comes across as lazy. Maybe Anno meant for us to be as blind as Shinji, but I can't say that the execution of it worked. For me at least, I wasn't so much connected with Shinji's state of mind so much as I was isolated from it.

[Merkaba]

But without some clear-cut answers as to the important plot details, such as how Gendo predicted all this would happen, and how he knew his son would act a certain way, it just comes across as lazy.

Just because you can't comprehend it doesn't make it "lazy" writing.

[LightDragonman]

Again, I'm not asking for every single answer. I just want it to at least give a plausible explanation as to why things are happening and why characters are acting/able to act the way they do.

[Giji Shinka]

Again, I'm not asking for every single answer. I just want it to at least give a plausible explanation as to why things are happening and why characters are acting/able to act the way they do.

Things are now more confusing than in the original series, so we'll get explanations most likely. (100% sure, because rebuilt is supposed to be easier to understand)

[ElMariachi]

But without some clear-cut answers as to the important plot details, such as how Gendo predicted all this would happen, and how he knew his son would act a certain way, it just comes across as lazy.

Gendo obviously extensively observed his son during the ten years he was living with his teacher, so he knows perfectly his son's psyche(hence how he knew that parading a wounded Rei would make him pilot out of guilt, or that he would run away but eventually come back after the fight against Shamshell), and unlike the rest of the world, Shinji didn't changed a bit during the past 14 years thanks to being in a "limbo" inside EVA-01's core, so the emotional buttons that worked 14 years ago(Rei, guilt-trips, fear of being unwanted and useless) still works now.

For Kaworu, Gendo had a decade and half to observe him and understand how he works, and since Kaworu can't stay more than ten seconds alone without speaking to himself about Shinji and how he's eager to meet him and how he'll bring him happiness no matter the cost, making his psychological profile shouldn't had been a very hard task, nor to understand that Kaworu is even ready to die for Shinji without a fraction of a second of hesitation.

As for WILLE, well here that was simple logic : they have a giant flying battleship which is the only mean to reach neo-NERV HQ with enough military resources to make an assault successful and bring the war to an end, but they lack the power source to make it fly. Apparently the only thing powerful enough to power it is it's original master or an awakened Evangelion, and since the first is in the hands of SEELE, that leaves only the latter as a solution, and since there is only one awakened Evangelion in the world, then sooner or later WILLE will try to salvage the tesseract sealing Unit 01 in orbit, which they did.

From here he can use the old emotional buttons to make Shinji willingly come with Mark.09(which he did), then to let him at his devices in the HQ until Kaworu, in his obsession about Shinji, will inevitably try to make friends with him(which they did), then crush Shinji's mind with guilt over what happened to the world with just the emotional button of his friendship with his classmates(represented by Tokji's shirt) which will prompt him to seek answers to Kaworu(which he did because Kaworu can't refuse anything to Shinji), then twist the knife with the revelations about Rei and the fact that he actually didn't saved to drive him over the edge(which it did), all of this so when Kaworu will come to Shinji to enlist him to pilot EVA-13 he will do anything to convince him to ease his pain, including to put the DSS Choker on himself so the weight of is sins and the Lilin's curse doesn't burden him anymore(which Kaworu did), while giving Shinji a sliver of hope in an otherwise completely nightmarish and hopeless situation, which will make him cling to this unexpected hope at any cost by fear of returning to the same state of complete hopelessness he was before, even if it means not listening to Kaworu's pleas to don't touch the spears and instead pull out the spears(which he did)

Now for WILLE, simple military logic would dictate that since they now have a mean to fly to neo-NERV's base and the enemy got their hands on a vital asset(Shinji), as soon as the repairs to the Wunder are done they will get as close as the enemy's HQ and monitor their moves to intercept them(which they did), and since said move will be to send two Evas in Lilith's Chamber, where the Wunder can't go, they will send their own two Evas to intercept Mark.09 and EVA-13(which they did), and the mental stress of having to fight a former friend, especially since the last time they were piloting Shinji's EVA-01 almost killed Asuka, will completely drove Shinji over the edge and make him go desperately to the spears, ignoring any warnings or pleas to stop(which he did!)

And once 4I starts, Kaworu, in his fanatical devotion to Shinji, will sacrifice his life because this 4I is not Shinji's happiness(which he did), weakening EVA-13 enough for it to start to fall, giving an opening to WILLE to reach the Eva and finish the job, stopping 4I and making SEELE's ritual suicide moot.

JUST. AS. PLANED.

Careful observation of the actors of his plan, simple logic and careful planning, Q is the demonstration in all it's details of the true extend of Gendo's talent of manipulation that were only glimpsed in the two previous movies and NGE, and even then you have to pick up all the hints and details to see just how as far his influence in the events of the movie goes.






All of this makes me think : seeing that Gendo planned to get rid of SEELE, and that for that he needed the Wunder to be able to fly, that means that he also planned something to take care of it for FINAL so that they wont interfere in his plans, but even then the big army of MP-EVAs seems to be overkill for just one ship(albeit a very big one), and not really useful since the thing can fly, so what counter-measures could have Gendo prepared to counter the AAA Wunder?

[Yokai]

Just because you can't comprehend it doesn't make it "lazy" writing.

To be fair, I there's some legitimacy to questioning the realism of the complacent nature that the characters seem to have in 3.0. There's definitely a bit of a stretch to believe that Gendo really planned the 14 years out in advanced, at this point I'd just like to assume that it's a character trait. He just always says that, regardless of the result to make him feel in control. I don't think there's any way he could have planned that in the end of 2.0, Kaworu threw the spear and halted the impact from going full speed. Especially when you consider the fact they're shocked to see a boy floating out on the moon just an hour earlier in the same film. Yet we're led to believe that this whole series of movies is some sort of super-plan?

I wouldn't say it's lazy writing, but if they choose not to address the missing info, it will come across as a big flaw with these films. It's not to say there can't be a bit of mystery, but there definitely needs to be more concrete details over what happened over the 14 years in order to convince me that it's even really a big deal. 14 years is a long time! To think that they're still going on about something that happened 14 years ago as it was yesterday really does make me question whether the time skip was really planned or if it was just an easy-way-out when it comes to explaining the Wunder.

edit: As a tangent, is there any chance that perhaps Shinji will be reunited / introduced to YUI in 4.0? Presuming that the Unit 01 core is actually empty like Ritsuko says and that BM 01 = Yui, BM 02 = Rei!2.0, and BM 03 = Shinji... There's a lot of potential a scene like that could have in the film, though it would probably cause Shinji's mind to be screwed up (which, you know, fits Eva pretty well.)

[pwhodges]

If BM 02 was Rei, then Wille would have been directly lying to Shinji when they said they found no trace of her. I prefer to interpret the BM 03 label as meaning the biomass of the third child (but with uncertainty as to the state of his soul or identity).

[ElMariachi]

I don't think there's any way he could have planned that in the end of 2.0, Kaworu threw the spear and halted the impact from going full speed. Especially when you consider the fact they're shocked to see a boy floating out on the moon just an hour earlier in the same film. Yet we're led to believe that this whole series of movies is some sort of super-plan?

Actually, there is a way : as you said he had seen with his own eyes the construction site of Mark.06 and know the progress of it's completion, and passed just next to the spear of Cassius. So he knew that Mark.06 will be ready very soon and that it had a spear with it, so if Shinji awakes EVA-01, SEELE will probably send Mark.06 with the LoC ASAP to stop the ongoing Impact.

And you can see Kaworu getting ready to sortie even before Zeruel starts its attack! One theory is that Gendo and SEELE are in a state of cold war were they're sabotaging the crap out of each other, starting from the sabotaging of Bethany Base, and SEELE counter-attacking with the sabotaging of EVA-04(one unused scene had them revel that they were also being the possession of EVA-03!), and that Mark.06 was sent to wait int orbit with the LoC that Big Z exterminate all of NERV's Evas and then stop Zeruel with the LoC, weakening Gendo so SEELE could get rid of him.

edit: As a tangent, is there any chance that perhaps Shinji will be reunited / introduced to YUI in 4.0? Presuming that the Unit 01 core is actually empty like Ritsuko says and that BM 01 = Yui, BM 02 = Rei!2.0, and BM 03 = Shinji... There's a lot of potential a scene like that could have in the film, though it would probably cause Shinji's mind to be screwed up (which, you know, fits Eva pretty well.)

Ritsuko said that the entry plug was empty, not the core. Rei and Yui are probably still inside EVA-01's core, if WILLE managed to get Rei out Misato would have used that to convince Shinji to don't go with Rei-Q.

But I do think that a reunion with Yui and Rei II will happen in FINAL, except not in a physical way, but via some other plane of existence inside EVA-01's core, or even Instrumentality if Gendo manages to launch it, to have a closure between Shinji, Yui and Rei II.

[Kendrix]

Consider this: EVA 01 has two cores now. Maybe they could only extract things from/only "searched" the core the entry plug was lodged in.

Or the other weirdness, like Shinji having a zero synch ratio while his harmonix are completely normal (There was never an exact explanation on what the difference and individual importance of each of these values is) is somehow second-core related.

Alternatively, Rei is stuck because the body of EVA 01 (assuming it's still cloned from Lillith) is, in fact, more "natural"/has a higher affinity to her soul than her humanoid one.

Or, you now need two people, one in each core, to make EVA 01 move - the second person's gonna be ReiQ.

[Reichu]

Consider this: EVA 01 has two cores now.

That was only in Radiant Giant mode. The upper core disappeared when Eva-01 was skewered. It was apparently on the same plane of reality as all of the chakras.

[Kendrix]

That was only in Radiant Giant mode. The upper core disappeared when Eva-01 was skewered. It was apparently on the same plane of reality as all of the chakras.

It did?

There goes my hope/fanfic idea...

[ElMariachi]

That was only in Radiant Giant mode. The upper core disappeared when Eva-01 was skewered. It was apparently on the same plane of reality as all of the chakras.

Did we saw that on the shot of it impaled by the lance in the "Next time" preview?

[Kendrix]

Did we saw that on the shot of it impaled by the lance in the "Next time" preview?

Reichu probably freeze-framed it just when the spear hit it, we see it ever so briefly as the glowing arm zaps out of existence...

[ElMariachi]

Wait, I remember that there was a storyboard of the shot of EVA-01 impaled in the "Next time" preview that let us see clearly the details of EVA-01, including its torso, did any member have that image at hand?

[wiser3754]

That was only in Radiant Giant mode. The upper core disappeared when Eva-01 was skewered. It was apparently on the same plane of reality as all of the chakras.

Didn't EVA-01 have the Tree of Sephiroth pattern embedded on it in Radiant God mode, minus 4 sephirot?

[ElMariachi]

Nope, the script clarify that this "pattern" is in fact EVA-01's bloodstream(you can even faintly notice it's heart)

[Shinoyami65]

Wait, I remember that there was a storyboard of the shot of EVA-01 impaled in the "Next time" preview that let us see clearly the details of EVA-01, including its torso, did any member have that image at hand?

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